Publications

Helping as an important form of social support is an integral part of a firm’s workplace culture. Using matched employer-employee panel data that are representative of larger, private-sector firms in Germany, we document significant between-firm variation in helping in the workplace. Helping is positively correlated with better organizational outcomes for both employees and firms. Differences in a firm’s quality of leadership together with employees’ level of general trust play a key role in explaining firm-level differences in helping. Our results corroborate the importance of both leadership and workforce characteristics for the manifestation of supportive workplace cultures.

To evaluate the impact of group identity on belief formation, we conducted online experiments before and after the 2020 US presidential election. We elicit participants’ beliefs about future unemployment statistics and health system rankings and provide relevant news summaries. We find that people pay money to avoid information from political outgroups and attribute lower weight to this information when updating beliefs. An intervention which unlabels information sources decreases outgroup information avoidance by 50%, with a significant impact on only groupish participants. A debiasing intervention equalizing instrumental values of information sources reduces only universalists’ WTP for a private signal. The interventions have little effect on information processing. The evidence is consistent with a source-utility channel contributing to polarization.

Organizational change typically disrupts employees’ sense of ‘who we are’ as an organization. Research aimed at understanding the consequences of organizational change has primarily focused on identity threat when explaining resistance to change. In this review, we expand upon these findings by reframing organizational change as an opportunity to intentionally strive for identity gain, rather than merely mitigating identity threat. We introduce identity leadership as a key tool for navigating change by creating a sense of shared identity. Drawing on the social identity approach and the social identity model of leadership, we argue that leader prototypicality, identity entrepreneurship, identity advancement and identity impresarioship serve as pathways through which leaders and followers can co-produce a positive sense of ‘us’ and advance shared goals. We propose directions for future research, advocating longitudinal, process-oriented and multi-level studies that capture the various ways in which leaders and engaged followers collaborate during organizational change.

This research focuses on the roles of identity leadership and team identification in the process of crafting social job resources. Because identity leadership enhances group identity, which in turn promotes cooperation and support, we hypothesized that identity leadership increases the crafting of social job resources via enhanced team identification among teammates. We performed three studies to test these relationships. In a two-wave correlational Study 1 (N = 777), we collected self-reported data from employees regarding their supervisor’s leadership styles as well as their own team identification and job crafting efforts. We observed a positive link between identity leadership and the social job crafting via team identification. Additionally, identity leadership directly predicted seeking social job resources but not structural job resources or challenging job demands. The dimensions of identity leadership linked with social job crafting included identity entrepreneurship and impresarioship. By manipulating identity leadership in experimental Study 2 (N = 287), we showed that, compared with the control condition, identity leadership increased subordinates’ team identification. Finally, in Study 3 (N = 785), we manipulated both identity leadership and team identification, demonstrating that both increased intentions to craft social job resources. We conclude that identity leadership influences employees' crafting intentions and behaviors positively with respect to social job resources and should be promoted among managers to increase proactivity and the exchange of social resources.

Physical inactivity is a widespread cause of chronic disease and is more common in minority groups, who experience discrimination in and exclusion from fitness environments. Organizational leadership can, however, foster inclusive norms and practices, and this may also be an attractive means for commercial gyms to increase their membership. The present experiment assessed an inclusive gym marketing campaign versus a conventional campaign versus control among 587 Australian community members. We found that participants who watched the inclusive campaign reported the strongest pro-inclusivity attitudes, advocacy intentions for minority group members in gym environments and intentions to exercise two weeks later. We found that members of the gym responsible for the inclusive campaign perceived their gym to be more inclusive and were less than half as likely to have experienced discrimination in the gym in the past two weeks, relative to active members of other gyms. Most people engaged well with the inclusive campaign, but non-members were less likely to believe it reflected the reality of the gym experience, with some seeing it as merely a cynical marketing ploy. Findings are discussed with a focus on how leadership theory can be utilized in practice to reduce discrimination and exclusion in fitness environments.

Research inspired by the social identity theory of leadership has focused predominantly on the importance of a leader being seen to be representative of the groups they lead. However, beyond this, research suggests that leaders also need to create, advance, and embed a sense of shared social identity in those groups. In the present research, we explore how these different facets of identity leadership combine to form distinct leader profiles. We draw on two heterogeneous independent samples from the Global Identity Leadership Development project (N = 7682; N = 7855) to explore profiles of leaders’ engagement in identity leadership. In both studies, a latent profile analysis of the results of a CFA using a bifactor-(S − 1) model was conducted. In each case, the analysis identified two different predominant identity leadership profiles: ‘engaged identity leaders’ and ‘moderate-inconsistent identity leaders’. Employees working with engaged identity leaders reported substantially more positive job-related attitudes. The results were very similar across the two studies and suggest that this profile analysis is generalizable. The findings support suggestions that identity leadership is multidimensional rather than solely a matter of identity prototypicality.

Introduction: This study examines the role of identity leadership in shaping employees' career calling and work-related attitudes across cultural contexts. Drawing on the Social Identity Approach and research on calling, we propose a serial mediation model where identity leadership fosters organizational identification, which in turn strengthens employees' sense of career calling. Methods: We propose that career calling is expected to relate positively to organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, and innovative work behavior, and negatively to turnover intention and burnout. The study further examines whether ambivalent identification attenuates the relationship between organizational identification and career calling. To test these hypotheses, survey data were collected from 552 employees across Iran, Italy, and Germany. Results: The results support the mediation model; identity leadership positively influences career calling both directly and indirectly via organizational identification. Additionally, career calling significantly mediates the relationship between identity leadership and key work-related outcomes. Contrary to expectations, ambivalent identification strengthens rather than weakens the effect of organizational identification on career calling. Discussion: Exploratory cross-cultural analyses suggest that the strength of these relationships varies across national contexts, pointing to the potential influence of cultural values on leadership, identification, and meaning-making processes.

This essential introduces the concept of identity leadership. In today’s world, it is no longer enough to set goals and demand performance. What matters is a sense of belonging, a strong feeling of “we.” Identity leadership shows how leaders can do more than manage teams; they can unite them. It focuses on creating a shared identity that motivates people, strengthens responsibility, and promotes both well-being and sustainable performance. When employees say, “This is our team,” they unlock the energy and motivation needed to work together toward common goals. This essential invites leaders to rethink leadership. Drawing on the Social Identity Approach, it outlines four principles of effective leadership: creating, embodying, advancing, and embedding a shared identity. International research, practical tools, and validated questionnaires help readers apply this approach in their everyday leadership practice and within their teams.